Triage
by Nukumi
Summary: Save the ones you can.


**Triage**

_n. ; the prioritization of patients according to urgency_

Shizune is not someone thought to have much of a sense of humor. She has always been highly scholastic, always taken her work very seriously. She doesn't get the bawdy jokes her mentor tells and is never impressed by practical jokes, causing her to be labeled as something of a stoic by her peers. But despite what others think Shizune knows that when it comes to personality, as it is with bodily systems, when one area fails there are others to compensate. What Shizune lacks in ordinary humor, she makes up for in cynicism and sarcasm. So while this should probably be the most serious moment of her life, Shizune can't help but to find it funny.

It's funny to her, that Yakushi's little boy grew up to be a threat. She didn't know him personally, had still been a child when she left the village with her master not long after he arrived, but no one ever expected the shy child Yakushi-san found and rescued from the battlefield of Kikyo Pass to grow up and turn against Konoha. There were so many orphans in Konoha that never got adopted; for an outsider to have that kind of luck was equivalent to hitting the lottery. More fortunate still for the adopting parent to be a shinobi of such great skill and willing to pass on that kind of knowledge to a nameless stray. No one could have ever guessed that a nobody like him would rise to such heights as to rival - maybe even surpass - Tsunade's level in her prime. Maybe if they had, they would have left him to die where he was found. Maybe they would have thrown him to Danzo.

Funny that _every_ non-Fire Country citizen that Konoha shinobi have trained have all sided against their saviors. Yahiko, Nagato, Konan, Kabuto...it makes her second guess the council's decision to allow Karin temporary protection in the village. She has the sneaking suspicion that sabotage is in the works, though that's a bridge that will have to be crossed later. All that's left of the village is ruins and hopefully the chaos is enough to stave off any attacks from inside for now.

Funny that she's the one who has to face him. Being one of the top medical shinobi in the nation, Shizune wasn't even sent out to fight - her purpose in battle wasn't to take lives, but to save them, and until recently she has always thought that it took an equal amount of power to perform either of those options. She has fought Kabuto before; back when Orochimaru's arms were sealed and her master had not yet overcome her phobia of blood, and she'd lost rather spectacularly. Three years later, one would think that things might be different. Tsunade was gaining in age, gradually slipping in power and while her new apprentice Sakura was coming along nicely, the chuunin was still too inexperienced to handle the likes of Kabuto. One would think that Shizune would be the perfect match for him, and one would be _wrong_. He addressed her with the proper respect, calling her 'Shizune-senpai' when he approached, and all Shizune could think about was the irony of the situation and that her master's luck must be rubbing off on her. Despite being one of the Sannin's apprentices for all of her life and despite the eight year age gap between Kabuto and herself, Shizune knows that she is still only on jounin level power-wise while he could be easily identified as on par with AnBu standards. And despite having heard stories of Kabuto's random acts of mercy to people from the Leaf, she knows that he will show her none of it.

Funny that, after saving countless lives in her career, there is no one to come save hers. They go a round - poison aganist poison, blade aganist blade, and jutsu against jutsu - and at the end of it, all Shizune has managed to do is sever one of his legs, and she knows he'll just re-attach it later. He has blocked nearly every swing, countered every jutsu and negated every poison she's hit him with all without losing his condescending smirk. He wasn't even taking her seriously. And now, as she lays dying in the blood-slicked grass, she finds herself smiling sadly. She has failed a mission that was never even given to her and she knows that her death will mean that many of her comrades will have no hope of survival. It's only now, feeling the life drain out of her, that it occurs to her that she should have made a run for her life on sight of Kabuto instead of fighting him. It's only now that she makes peace with the fact that he's better than her. And it's only now, as Kabuto goes to collect his leg, that he notices that she used a bit of acid in her last poison-based attack, and it's just starting to eat at his chakra system as well as his circulatory system. He can save himself, still, if he can shut off his chakra and blood flow in time, but the real challenge will be rather he can restart them or not. It's every man for himself, and if he intends to live, then saving himself is the only option he's got. No one else will; Konoha shinobi do not make the same mistake twice.

Shizune knows that she hasn't the strength left to save her own life, but as the seconds tick by and Kabuto tries antidote after antidote without success, she thinks that just maybe she was strong enough to take his. Now _that_ is freakin' hilarious.

The last laugh belongs to her.


End file.
